


Blade of Vengeance

by blackglass



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Gen, Prompt Fill, Psychic Abilities, Telepathy, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Mako Mori, the lone Psy survivor of Tokyo, met Councilor Stacker Pentecost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blade of Vengeance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArwenLune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/gifts).



> This is an AU fusion with Nalini Singh’s _Psy-Changelings_ paranormal romance series. You don’t have to know the books to follow along but short intro: in the Psy-Changeling universe, there are 3 races--the Psy (who have psychic powers), Changelings (who shift into various animals), and humans. Due to a high prevalence of psychopathy and mass violence in the Psy population, many years ago they decided to enact a protocol called Silence where they conditioned emotion out of their race, in order to stop the violence. And it worked...or so they thought.
> 
> I'd been wanting to write this AU for aaaaages. I have just about everyone's roles slotted in this universe...but no plot. orz Thankfully ArwenLune's prompt allowed me to give y'all a glimpse of the vision I've been sitting on for about a year now. The cheese-tastic title is _absolutely_ a play off of the title conventions for the books (and what I would have titled a full length fic if, again, _I had an actual plot_.) 
> 
> Many thanks to nessismore for looking this over and helping to brainstorm titles.
> 
> Also used to fill my "au: fusion" square for trope_bingo.

KAIJU strikes on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon with simultaneous attacks on the principal PsyNet anchors and their failsafes in the Tokyo region.

The effects are immediate and catastrophic as the PsyNet implodes from the inside-out, the shockwaves rippling outwards as far as Yokohama. The first to die are the Psy children, their immature minds unable to survive the sudden shock of being cut off from the psychic biofeedback provided by the Net. That their deaths are immediate is cold comfort. The adults manage to survive for mere seconds more, their last moments spent in absolute agony.

The implosion lasts about a minute all told. And in that time, the Psy population of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area is reduced by a staggering 80,000 lives. 

The collapse of Tokyo casts KAIJU’s last attack on the tiny hamlet of Cape Dorset utterly in the shade. An unimaginable escalation that no one could have predicted. The coordination, precision, and near instantaneous nature of the attacks on Tokyo’s 15 anchors and their sprawling failsafe networks a chilling and devastating demonstration of the strength of KAIJU’s hivemind forces. 

No one could mistake it for anything other than a declaration of all-out war.

Eighty thousand lives, eighty thousand lights permanently snuffed out in the glittering expanse of the PsyNet.

And Mako Mori, aged 9, should have been one of those lost. 

***

Mako is wearing a new dress, a ~~pretty~~ blue coat, and brand new ~~shiny~~ red shoes that Mother and Father have bought for her after they have left the hospital. Tokyo is bright and busy and _huge_ , a far cry from their quiet village in Tanegashima.

It is one of the ~~best and most exciting~~ most stimulating and novel days Mako has ever experienced in her young life. She is about to ask her parents whether they might take a walk in the park when she feels _It_.

It’s as if she has been _punched_ out of her body. One second it is an idyllic and temperate May afternoon, and the next second it is nothing but _screaming, crushing_ pain and darkness. Unmoored, floundering, and terrified, Mako _reaches_ and suddenly--

\-- _His name is Otsuka Shinji, he was at work in his office, ohgodithurtswhat’s happeni--_

_\--she is Shinohara Masako, M-Psy, mother of 2, she is screaming on the floor of the supermar--_

_\--Matsuoka Hajime, aged 43, subway worker--_

_\--Kazutoshi Sato, 37, he’d been eating a late lunch--_

_\--MAKEITSTOP--_

_\--Inoue Shuji, student--_

_\--she is Shimamoto Sumi--_

_\--ITHURTSITHURTSSOMUCH--_

_\--Hirose Tadashi--_

_\--Tatsuda Naoki--_

Mako flees from mind to mind in desperate and terrified confusion, trying to escape the pain. It’s like the ground is giving way beneath her and she is just barely keeping ahead of the yawning, grasping abyss.

_\--now she’s Fukutomi Kazuko, writhing on the floor of her bathroom--_

_\--Ota Masuyuki, 56, at home alone in front of the television--_

_\--Nagano Junichi, fish seller in Yokohama--_

And suddenly she is caught up and suspended in midnight blue. It is all around her, stretching as far as she can see in her mind’s eye, soothing and solid. 

Safe.

_THIS IS COUNCILOR STACKER PENTECOST. I HAVE CONTAINED THE BREACH AND AM IN THE PROCESS OF STABILIZING THE REGION. PLEASE REMAIN CALM. YOU ARE SAFE._

Mako traces the wall of deep blue in wonder, pain blessedly gone, the sudden silence so welcome. She closes her eyes, reaches curiously and--

_She feels...she doesn’t know how to describe it. Immense. Endless. It is power beyond her comprehension. She is Stacker Pentecost, Councilor, aged 31, cardinal telepath, she’d been in a meeting when she felt the psychic surge as Tokyo collapsed. The PsyNet glitters like a galaxy before her, and she can see the gaping darkness where tens of thousands of lives had once glowed. She wills the tattered remains of the Net together, suturing it psychically--wait, who is--_

_Who are you? What are you doing?_

Mako jerks in surprise, pulling out of--was she in his mind? _I...I am Mori Mako. I’m sorry, I did not mean…_

_..You are young, Miss Mori, are you not? How old are you?_

_ I am 9 years old, Councilor. _

_Nine years old...and yet here you are. Were you in Yokohama?_

_No, Councilor. I...I was in Tokyo_.

There is silence. Mako would venture to call it a stunned silence except that she knows Stacker Pentecost is the perfect Psy and Psy are Silent--they do not _feel_.

_This is unusual. What is your designation, Miss Mori?_

_ They believe my primary designation is telepathy. I last tested at 4.3 on the Gradient. _

_A 4.3 Gradient telepath would not be able to wander into the mind of a cardinal telepath, let alone that of a Councilor. Not with my shields._

Mako does not know what to say to that. _I’m sorry. I don’t…you could ask my parents if--_

Mako stops short, stomach dropping in horrified realization. Her parents. They’re...they’re dead, aren’t they? And even though Mako is Psy, even though she should be Silent, shouldn’t feel anything, she _does_. Feel, that is. She wants to scream again, but for a different reason, a different kind of pain. Loss. Desolation. _Grief._

She feels a psychic brush, like a hand sweeping across her forehead.

_Rest, Miss Mori. You are far from home and alone, but you are safe here. Rest._

Exhausted, battered and bludgeoned by fear and pain and grief, Mako does just that cradled in the cool dark blue of Stacker Pentecost’s shields.


End file.
